


honey, sometimes love means getting a little rough

by gatty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Deathfic, F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:17:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatty/pseuds/gatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave makes some decisions, most of them bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	honey, sometimes love means getting a little rough

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the first round prompt in the [Homestuck Shipping Olympics](http://hs-olympics.livejournal.com), 'resuscitating fandom cliches', with the intent of salvaging the bad reputation of songfic.
> 
> The song used is [Bad Love](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mIS4iNa7zE) \- White Lies. Listening while reading encouraged!

_i. i was waiting in the back-seat of the car when i knew i’d given up. down on the back-streets by the park, so sick of the taste of blood._

 

He stops into the liquor store and buys as much gin as the bills in his wallet can get him. His car is parked round the corner, in the lot of a closed garage. The alcohol bites into the back of his throat, makes him splutter, but he forces it down until it is only a warm line along his throat. The interior of his car smells like stale fast food, grease and chemicals and cheap meat mixing with the peeling leather of the seats.

He rests his cheek against the back seat, sweat sticking his skin to it. His legs are sprawled out awkwardly in the small footwell; the car window roller is digging into his knee. There is a billboard across the road he can see out of the window. One corner of it has peeled of, hanging down and obscuring the advertisement. It is a catfood advert he has seen many times before, but he cannot for the life of him remember what it’s supposed to say. He peers at it, head angled awkwardly against the seatbelt buckle.

He sucks on the gin bottle, feeling the liquid burn as he swallows. It almost hurts. It should hurt. Dave of Guy, alone in his car at two a.m. on a Tuesday night should hurt.

It is a hot night - when isn’t it - and sweat is pooling in his armpits, soaking through his shirt. There are little runnels along his neck, disappearing under his collar. He tugs at the material halfheartedly. It sticks to his back. He thinks he’s starting to smell of alcohol but he can’t tell. At some point, he must fall asleep, because the next thing he knows the billboard lights are flickering off, leaving him at the mercy of the sun’s inroads between the buildings. The faint shadow of the garage is slowly being pushed back across the tarmac of the empty lot.

He tugs the car door open and uncurls out onto the ground. The two-thirds-empty gin bottle is rolling around on the seat. He is still a little drunk, the recriminations for a night drinking in the back of his car are yet to come. He must have knocked his head into something while asleep because he can taste blood in his mouth. It is a few paces to where the shadow line lies, and he sits down, knees up to lean against, toes nudging the sunlight.

It creeps up his legs, washing the colour from his jeans, then reaches his arms, and finally his head. It is warm, sliding fingers of heat along the lines where skin touches skin, but his headache has begun and he does not notice the shadow he now casts himself.

He staggers back to his car and sleeps off the rest of his hangover before an irate garage attendant moves him on.

 

 _ii. i’m gonna write your girl a letter, it’ll make everything better_

 

— TG has started pestering GC —   


TG: hey  
TG: …  
TG: god thats stupid why am i saying hi  
TG: whatever  
TG: i dont know why im writing this  
TG: bored i guess  
TG: boring without you  
TG: … thats fucking stupid too  
TG: fucking sappy bullshit  
TG: not like youre going to read this  
TG: so i guess i can be as sappy as i like  
TG: no one here to read it  
TG: but also no reason to be sappy  
TG: its just me and i know what im thinking anyway  
TG: not that that makes it any easier to try and write this shit down  
TG: but i was thinking  
TG: about the game  
TG: which i know is stupid but  
TG: theres always a way out isnt there  
TG: you can do shit to fix your mistakes  
TG: no one stays like  
TG: gone  
TG: like it was just things that i was thinking and shit but there it is  
TG: layin it out there for mr j shit and his absent buddies  
TG: all on a platter with melon and ham slices just offerin themselves up to be eaten  
TG: my point being  
TG: one time i needed to be the knight of time and ended up as just dave of shitty guy  
TG: i fucked up  
TG: now i gotta find a way to fix it  
TG: thats how this shit works rite  
TG: im thinking it totally is.  
TG: okay ill be going now  
TG: stop wasting my time talking to people who cant reply  
TG: dead girl cant appreciate these ill schooled beats and strict rhymes im displaying all over  
TG: whatever fuck it im not on my game today  
TG: dont give a shit  
TG: so  
TG: yeah  
TG: see you later

 

 _iii. i bought a tuxedo and i bought a gun and wore them all around this town_

 

He smooths out the velour, checking himself in a car window. It is the wrong shade of red but it is the best he can find. He has seen the couple he followed out of the club turn into an alley, and he gives himself a moment to run his hand over the gun tucked into his pants. In the alley, she is propped against the wall, head lolling, one shoe missing. The man is finding it difficult to undo his fly while holding her up at the time time.

Dave pulls the gun and walks in one smooth like through the discarded food wrappers and cigarette butts to place the muzzle under the guy’s chin.

“It might not kill you,” he says quietly, and the guy freezes. “But you’ll probably drown on your own blood while you wait for anyone to give enough of a shit about you to call for help. You won’t be able to call yourself, as your vocal chords will be severed. You will die in agony and you won’t be able to make a sound.”

The guy is trying to see Dave out of the corners of his eyes, without moving his head. Dave shoves the gun harder into his neck.

“So put your dick away and fuck off.”

The guy legs it, letting the woman slump down the wall. Dave waits until he’s gone from the alley before crouching down. She is looking blearily at the wall opposite. Fifteen minutes ago, she had bent down while at the bar, to adjust her shoe, and not seen the pills dropped into her drink. He tucks the gun back into his belt, and hauls her up. There is a cab stand nearby, and he pours her into the backseat. He finds her address on her ID and shows it to the driver, throwing him a handful of bills.

A few nights later, a mugger in the park puts up a fight and he knocks him out bringing the barrel of the gun down on his head with a sickening crack. The businessman getting robbed grabs back his wallet in a blind panic and runs. Dave is left standing over an unconscious body. There is blood starting to trickle down from the mugger’s hair line, so he rolls the guy closer to the road, then hides amongst the trees, hands shaking as he tries to breath.

It is a week before he goes out again. He puts the gun in a sock and buries it underneath the dusty bottles of bleach and windex. Lying in bed, he looks at the tuxedo hanging up on his wardrobe door. He knows the deal he is trying to make. It is the only deal he can think of making. When the digital alarm by his head clicks onto two a.m. he gets up and gets dressed. He unearths the sock from the cleaning fluids and walks five blocks east. People give him a wide berth. Dark glasses and a red velour suit in the early hours of the morning along with the twitching of his hands puts him firmly into the category of people you cross the road to avoid. After an hour drifting around the streets, he finds a drug deal gone wrong. There are five of them and one of him, and all the fancy sword fighting foot work doesn’t save him from ending up curled in a ball getting the shit kicked out of him. Someone has a baseball bat and he feels it draw white hot stripes across his ribs. It’s easier to hold his breath than try to breath. When they get bored, he waits until they are a good five yards away from him, before pulling the gun out. He is still on his side and his aim is shit, but he gets one in the shoulder, another in the thigh. He fires till his clip is empty; some shots go wide, chipping out bits of masonry. Then one thunks through skull, and splatters out the other side. He watches the others run as the corpse slumps against a dumpster.

His ribs are a band of pain when he pushes himself up to sitting. He coughs blood onto his sleeve. In the half light of the street lamp it is the same colour as the material. For a moment he thinks of another time he looked at his blood on his hands, but it passes.

 

 _iv. nobody dares to lift a finger they can see my heart is down and injured_

 

Jade phones, ringer cutting through his hangover like cheese wire into his skull.

“What.”

He unscrews the gin and takes a swig.

“Morning to you too, grumpy face!”

“Now isn’t good.”

He sits on the kitchen floor, pressing his face against the wall. There is the smell of vomit coming from somewhere, but that’s a task for later on. He lets a little more gin trickle into his mouth, swilling it round his teeth.

“You don’t sound too great. I thought you’d agreed to take it easy for a while? No more drinking.”

There is concern in her voice, and a little anger. His ribs throb as much as his head. He tries to find some part of his body that does not hurt, and focus on it. After a moment’s contemplation he settles on his ankles. A little more gin eases the process.

“… are you drinking right now, Dave?” she asks

“It’s fucking orange juice, get off my back.”

“Don’t swear at me.”

He shuts his eyes, and moves his tongue round his dry mouth.

“No. I’m sorry. Shit. Can I call you later?”

“I - I was thinking. I think - and I mean this about me too - but I think we need to make some normal friends. We can just sit here with our memories, it’s not healthy.”

He can picture her at the other end of the line, biting her lip with those big teeth, twisting her fingers up in her shirtsleeves.

“What is this, fucking lifetime special or something. I’m fine. I told you. Orange juice. Social life. Check and check.”

“You have to stop thinking about her. She’s gone, they all are. There’s no loophole. We’re not in the game anymore.”

His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle, and his throat constricts.

“I’ll call you back. I’ve got shit to do. Strider’s a busy man, Harley. Can’t let one chick be monopolising my time.”

He hangs up before she replies, and crawls into the bathroom. He turns the shower on, and sits in the bottom of the cubicle, still in his t-shirt and boxers. The water starts to run red as the blood washes out of his hair, pooling pink around the plug hole.

 

 _v. if i’m guilty of anything, it’s loving you too much. honey, sometimes love means getting a little rough. this isn not bad love._

 

He meets them at bars, different girl, different bar each night. Girls who study law, girls who wear a lot of colours. Girls with sharp nails, girls who carry badges, girls who talk to him about the philosophy of reality while he knocks back beer after beer. He fucks them, and leaves straight after, not caring what a cliche he is.

And then he meets her. Small and angular on a bar stool with kick-curl hair and a laugh like a hyena choking on chicken bones. She talks circles round him as he makes his way through his beer stares down her top. She laughs at him, and draws a picture on her napkin of him ogling her chest. He touches the right angles of her elbows and knees and feels his stomach twist.

She won’t go home with him. She gives him her number and tells him if he’s not a giant shitbag he’ll call her, and then maybe they’ll see. He only just stops himself following her home.

Back in his apartment, he wraps the gun up again in saran wrap and a pillow case and puts it behind the cans of peaches from 2002. He calls her sitting on his couch, punches in the number with the phone held in both hands on his knees. She answers, and agrees to have coffee with him. He has no idea what they talk about, he just knows he never wants her to stop talking to him. She drinks three cappuccinos, lapping up the foam and licking her spoon. He watches the movement of her tongue, the snap of her incisors around the biscotti. It is only her eyes he cannot bring himself to look at. Brown and a little bloodshot. He asks her about her job. She is a cop. He knocks his coffee into his lap, and schools his breathing calm again as he mops at his pants with a handful of paper napkins.

They fuck in the back of his car, and she laughs at him for leaving his shades on. She says she’ll see him again on Tuesday.

He calls Jade later and tells her he’s got a fucking A++ social life, so don’t worry about him. When he hangs up, he pours the gin down the sink, and lines the bottles up with the recycling.

Two weeks later, they’re still drinking coffee and fucking. He hasn’t looked at the bloody clothes at the bottom of his wash bag since Jade called. She finds them, and jokes about him having a secret vigilante identity, fighting crime on the backstreets of Houston. He snatches the clothes off her and kicks her out of his apartment. His ribs begin to ache again as he burns the clothes in the sink. She’s talking to him again a few days later, and they sit on her couch eating pizza and drawing all over the funnies. He puts her hands on his throat when they fuck that night, and tries to get her to squeeze. She tells him she’s not into that sort of thing, but he pulls her hands back, pressing them into his windpipe. Her stupid brown eyes go wide with panic. She tries to pull her hands away, but his fingers are digging into her skin, nails cutting crescents. She pulls some police academy self defence moves and then they’re grappling on the bed, her knees and elbows bruising his sides.

She struggles into her dress, snatching up her clothes from his floor. He lies on the bed, red slaps stinging on his cheeks and arms. Don’t ever fucking call me, she snaps as the door slams.

 

 _vi. i’ve been going to church but i don’t believe i’ll ever be clear this pain. walk like a ghost through the streets soaked from the pouring rain. and i won’t ask your god for mercy, my spirits are low my soul is dirty._

 

He drops his cell phone over the edge first, watching it shrink and shrink until it plops into the fast moving water below. Summer storms have swollen the flood channels, washing away the dusty, scrub strewn banks. He swings his legs over and toes his shoes off. They go the way of his phone. Though he is wearing his shades he still has to shield his eyes from the sharp sunlight slicing down between the buildings that line the waterway. As the sun sets, the buildings stretch their shadows out across the river, marking the black night water from the grey water of the day.

He is painfully sober. He can feel every touch of wind on his cheek, the sun scorched metal against his legs. There is the fetid smell of refuse on the wind. Trash is being swept along in the water, bobbing and ducking under like heads.

He holds the gun in his lap. It is familiar now, he knows the weight of it, can bring up the sound it makes in his mind. See the splatter of red as it does its work. It is simple to let it drop into the water. It sinks like a stone. The shadows have reached his bank now and are creeping towards his legs. He wonders if there is still blood left on his skin, in the lines of his palms. If you took a microscope to him what you would find in the dirty lines under his nails. Blood, gun powder, gin, semen.

The shadows slide up his legs, taking in his chest, his arms, shoulders, curling up over his face and head.

He leans forward.


End file.
